Anticancer: A Book Well Worth Reading as a Handbook on Preventing and Fighting Cancer

After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, the French physician David Servan-Schreiber devoted himself to studying everything available on cancer recovery and talked at length with a great many cancer survivors. Out of this he wrote a book entitled Anticancer: A New Way of Life. The book went through two editions; the second was completed only shortly before Dr. Servan-Schreiber's death.

By changing his lifestyle according to his own recovery philosophy, Dr. Servan-Schreiber survived for more than 18 years after his cancer diagnosis before finally succumbing to the disease.

The book has been highly praised by many in the medical community. Professor John Mendelsohn, then president of the internationally renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center, reviewed it as follows: "I found Anticancer to be an engaging and meticulously researched book that provides the knowledge needed for evidence-based cancer prevention and for lowering cancer risk. It also fills an important gap in our knowledge—namely, what patients can do to complement conventional medical treatment in helping to treat their own disease."

The Italian National Union against Cancer endorsed the book so strongly that it printed its own logo on the cover of the Italian edition. Many physicians and scientists working in cancer care not only recommend the book to readers but have also changed their own lifestyles according to some of its ideas, benefiting greatly from it.

Oncologists are usually extremely busy and rarely have the energy or inclination to explore knowledge beyond their specialty. Most oncologists even dismiss cancer-prevention and anticancer knowledge outside their own field, regarding it as unscientific.

Some patients think otherwise. A former patient of mine with liver cancer (who survived for thirteen years after diagnosis) once said to me: "If I hadn't listened to the doctors, I wouldn't have lived this long; but if I had listened to them completely, I wouldn't have lived this long either." He was a very wise patient who had studied liver-cancer treatment and recovery strategies in depth, which is why he survived so long.

Dr. Servan-Schreiber was such a patient too, except that he was a rigorously trained physician and scientist as well as a gifted writer. Like most patients, after completing his conventional cancer treatment, the first thing his doctors told him was simple: "There is nothing you need to do; just come back for regular check-ups." They told him that anything he did would make little difference, and offered him no specific advice on diet or exercise.

This left Dr. Servan-Schreiber deeply uneasy, so he spent a great deal of time studying the literature, which convinced him that there were things he could do to support his treatment. In practice he later found that, in fact, adjunctive measures beyond conventional medicine could substantially reduce cancer mortality, and that patients themselves could take control of how long and how well they lived.

He even sought wisdom in Indian yoga and Tibetan Buddhism, yet he never abandoned the objectivity of a scientist, approaching every method of promoting physical and mental health with a factual, evidence-based attitude. Many of his conclusions were recognized by the international academic community, and he also advanced research into natural recovery within international anticancer organizations.

As a cancer patient—and also as a physician and scientist—Dr. Servan-Schreiber was dedicated to public welfare and eager to do what he could to help other cancer patients recover. He therefore spared no effort in promoting his ideas to society. From his book we can learn not only a great deal about cancer prevention and treatment, but also see his uplifting, positive attitude toward life.

Life after his diagnosis was not gloomy for him but full of vitality. With a positive, optimistic outlook he studied how to activate the body's own self-healing power against cancer, and he called loudly on cancer patients to take action—to overcome cancer relying both on their doctors and on themselves.

He honestly recorded how he emerged from despair and examined in detail the role that the love and care of relatives and friends play for cancer patients. In his writing we can see the spiritual ordeal cancer patients go through, and we can also learn, as family and friends of a patient, how to encourage and support them.

Many people may think cancer has nothing to do with them; that is a naive view. China has entered a period of high cancer incidence: at least a quarter of Chinese people will eventually die of cancer, and nearly every family will encounter the disease at some point.

The United States went through the same phase, to the point where, in the second half of the last century, the U.S. government launched a nationwide war on cancer. At least 40% of cancers can be prevented by adjusting lifestyle, so in the decades after that national campaign, cancer incidence in the U.S. has steadily declined. In China, this kind of work has only just begun, and many people still do not realize that cancer is threatening their own health and their families.

I warmly recommend Dr. Servan-Schreiber's Anticancer and hope my readers will set aside some time to read it. I believe it can help many cancer patients and their families, and bring insight to their efforts to prevent and fight cancer.